1964.11.28 MARINER 4 flied to Mars and began its explorative mission

MARINER 4 spacecraft weighted 260kg and was launched by ATLAS LV-3A rocket at Cape Canaveral. After going to the earth's orbit, it flied toward Mars to executive the mission of Mars exploration.

After the journey of 228 days, MARINER 4 arrived the altitude of 9,846 km from Mars on July 14, 1965. It was the first probe taking 21 photos of Mars from the close distance covering 1% of total Mars surface.

The transmission of all image should be reached to ground station within 8.3 hours. To avoid transmission error, all images needed to be sent twice to maintain the quality.